Velvet Song

  When Pagnell had killed her father, she’d done what she could to survive. Survival! That meant nothing to someone like Raine and his powerful brothers. War, revenge, honor, these childish games of kidnapping each other were things that had never entered into her life.

  “May I join you?” Jocelin asked. “Like to share your thoughts with me?”

  Her eyes glistened. “I was imagining Raine behind a plow. If he had to worry about his fields growing he wouldn’t have time to think of murdering this Chatworth. And if Chatworth were driving a team of oxen he wouldn’t have had the energy to kidnap Raine’s sister.”

  “Ah, make everyone equal,” he said. “Rather like King Henry wants. Give all the power to one man and none to anyone else.”

  “You sound like Raine,” she accused. “I thought you’d be on my side.”

  Jocelin leaned against a rock and smiled. “I am on no one’s side. I have seen both ways of life and the poverty of the lower class doesn’t appeal to me nor the . . . the decadence of the upper class. Of course, there are people in the middle. I think I should like to be a rich merchant, a buyer and seller of silks, and grow a fat belly.”

  “There were rich merchants in Moreton, but they weren’t happy either. They were always worried about losing their money.”

  “Rather like Raine is worried about losing his honor?”

  Alyx smiled at him, realized he was leading toward something. “What are you trying to tell me?”

  “That all of us are different, that nothing is all good or bad. If you want Raine to understand your ways, be patient. Screeching at him will do little.”

  She laughed at that. “Screeching, is it? Perhaps I am a bit loud.”

  Jocelin gave an exaggerated groan. “You do realize that you are as stubborn as he is, don’t you? Both of you are so sure you’re right, that your way is the only one.”

  For a quiet moment, Alyx considered this. “Why do you think I love him, Joss? I know he’s lovely to look at, but then so are you. Why would I love Raine when I know nothing can ever come of that love? The best I can hope for is to be made his family musician, to serve his . . . his wife and children.”

  “Who knows what makes us love?” Joss said, a faraway look in his eyes.

  “It was almost as if I’d known Raine before I met him. All the way into the forest I kept thinking how I hated all the nobility, but as soon as I saw Raine—” She laughed. “I really did try.”

  “Come on, let’s go back. I’m sure Raine will have work for us to do. And try to remember that he needs comfort now as much as lectures on what a mule he is.”

  “I will try,” she said, taking his hand as he helped her up.

  In the shadows of the trees stood a woman everyone seemed to have forgotten—Blanche. Her face contorted into ugliness when she saw Jocelin take Alyx’s hand. For the last few days Alyx and Raine had been tearing at each other as only lovers can. They seemed to think the inside of the tent gave them privacy, but their two voices were so loud that stone walls wouldn’t have sheltered them. The people in the camp wagered on who was going to win the arguments, saying the boy could hold his own. They cheered when Alyx said her class of people had too much work to do to talk about honor.

  But there were things the people didn’t hear, things that only Blanche heard as she fastened her ear to the tent wall: that Alyx had been declared a witch because of some man’s lust, that Alyx loved Raine, and at night were the unmistakable sounds of lovemaking.

  Once she’d had a good position in a castle, Edmund Chatworth’s castle, and she’d had Jocelin for a lover. Now, in the rare times when Joss did look at her, his lips curled into a snarl and his eyes glowed with hatred. All because of that disgusting whore Constance! Constance had taken Joss away from Blanche, away from women everywhere. Jocelin, who used to laugh and sing, who took three women to his bed at once and made them all happy, was like a celibate priest now. Yet recently, he’d been looking at that devil-marked Rosamund with more than a little interest.

  And now she was losing Raine—great, handsome, powerful, rich Raine. And to what? A skinny, shorthaired, flat-chested boy/girl. If I were to wear men’s clothes, Blanche thought, no one would mistake me for a boy. But that Alyx had no curves and her face looked like an elf s. So why was Raine panting after her? She was no highborn lady but of the same class as Blanche. Before Alyx came, Blanche was Raine’s personal attendant and once, oh lovely night! she’d shared his bed. Now it was never likely to happen again—unless she could get rid of Alyx.

  With a new, determined look on her face, she turned back to the camp.

  * * *

  For weeks Alyx worked to keep Raine from declaring war on Roger Chatworth. The letters that went from Montgomery Castle and back again began to be exchanged weekly. More than once, Alyx thanked the Lord Raine couldn’t read, because at the bottom of her letters to Gavin, she added a postscript of her version of the truth. She told Gavin how Raine’s anger grew each day, how he was driving himself harder and harder on the training field, preparing himself for battle with Chatworth.

  In return Gavin wrote of Bronwyn’s having been found, of her baby due in August. He wrote of their youngest brother’s rage at his sister’s death and how Miles had been sent to relatives on the Isle of Wight, in hopes that their uncle could cool Miles’ temper. In a lighter vein, Gavin said that their uncle was the one in a rage now since his ward had fallen in love with Miles and was vowing to follow him to the ends of the earth.

  “What is this brother of yours like?” Alyx asked, curious.

  “Women like Miles,” was all Raine would say. There was no humor about him these days. Even his lovemaking had a desperate edge to it.

  Another brother, Stephen, wrote from Scotland. The letter, to Alyx’s mind, was odd, filled with anger against the English, talk of the year’s poor crops.

  “Is your brother a Scotsman?” she asked.

  “He is married to the MacArran and has taken her name.”

  “He has given up a good English name for a Scot’s?” She was incredulous.

  “Bronwyn could make a man do anything for her,” Raine said flatly.

  Alyx bit her tongue to keep from making a snide comment about the idle, rich women Raine had always loved. Once she did say something of the sort and made Raine smile.

  “Judith,” he said with such longing that Alyx winced. “In my life I have never spent a day working as hard as she does each day.”

  “Chivalrous of you,” Alyx had snorted, disbelieving what he said.

  It was in April that things began to happen. The camp of outlaws seemed docile all through winter, but as the trees began to bud and there was a breath of fresh air about, they began to fight. Not fight each other head on, but sneak up quietly and club someone.

  Raine’s work increased a hundred fold. He was determined to keep order in the camp.

  “Why do you bother?” Alyx snapped at him. “They aren’t worth your time.”

  For the first time in a long while, she saw one of his dimples appear. “Can’t teach honor to one of their class, is that it? Only we are privy to those feelings.”

  “We?” she snorted. “Since when have I become one of your satin-clad ladies? I’ll wager I can handle a sword as well as your Judith can handle a needle.”

  For some reason this seemed to highly amuse Raine. “You’d win that bet,” he laughed. “Now come here and give me a kiss. I know you’re the best at that.”

  Gladly, she clung to him. “Am I, Raine?” she asked seriously. She tried to live each day as it came, but sometimes she thought of the future, of seeing Raine with his lady-wife, of herself in the shadows.

  “Now, what’s that look for?” he asked, tipping her chin up. “Am I so difficult to be around?”

  “I’m just afraid, that’s all. We won’t always be in the forest.”

  “That is something to be thankful for!” he said passionately. “No doubt decay has set into my house in these last months.”


  “If you went to the King—” she began tentatively.

  “Let’s not argue,” he whispered against her lips. “Is it possible to love a woman and hate her mind?”

  Before Alyx could reply, he began to kiss her, and after that there was no thought of anything but the feel of him against her body. They were never very discreet; they couldn’t be. Although Alyx still kept up the pretense of working on the training field, she was never quite serious. Whenever she felt Raine’s eyes on her, she did everything she could to entice him to her. She teased him mercilessly.

  And oh, what freedom the boy’s clothes gave her! Once when they’d gone hunting and were quite some distance from the camp, Alyx turned around in the saddle to face him and untied the triangle in front of her tight hose. Raine, at first astonished, soon began to react to her creativity. Within seconds, he, too, was unfastened and he pulled her on top of him.

  They had not counted on Raine’s stallion. The horse, nostrils flaring, went wild at the smell of their lovemaking. Raine was fighting the horse and trying to hold onto Alyx’s ardent little body. But the point came when he could no longer control anything. As his body exploded in Alyx’s, the great beast reared, making Alyx’s eyes fly open in wonder.

  Raine laughed so hard at her expression she was insulted. “No, I will not do it again,” he said, grinning. “And to think you spent most of your life inside a church. Now you’re”—he wiggled his brows—“riding horses.”

  She made an attempt to snub him, but as she tried to turn around, she realized the triangular patch on her hose was missing. For an hour she had to bear Raine’s laughter while they scrounged in the leaves looking for the bit of fabric.

  But Alyx had the last laugh. The sight of her so provocatively clad soon changed his words to honey. She, with all the pride she’d learned from him, made him fall to his knees and beg for her favors. Of course she hadn’t realized at what level his mouth would be with him on his knees and her standing. In seconds, it was Alyx begging for mercy.

  After a long, leisurely lovemaking, Raine extracted her hose patch from his pocket—where it had been all along. As she pummeled his chest with her fists in mock fury, he kissed her until she was breathless.

  “Learn who is the master here, wench,” he said, nuzzling her neck. “Now we must return to camp. That is, if my horse will let me ride him. No doubt he is as in love with you as you are with him.”

  She tried not to, but she blushed furiously at his jest. Raine gave her taut buttocks a friendly slap and lifted her into the saddle. He shouted with laughter when the horse danced in protest as Raine mounted.

  “He protests your weight, most likely,” she said smugly.

  “You do not protest my weight, so why should he?”

  Alyx thought it was better to keep her mouth shut because she knew Raine was going to win.

  Now, holding onto him, she tried not to think of the future, of the time when they would no longer be equals.

  A shout outside the tent made them start apart.

  “What is it this time?” Raine growled. “Another robbery or another beating?”

  There was a mob of people approaching the tent, all of them angry.

  “We demand you find the robber,” said the leader. “No matter where we hide our things, they are taken.”

  Rage swept through Alyx. “And what right do you have to make demands, you stupid oaf?” she yelled. “Since when is Lord Raine your protector? You should have gone to the gallows long ago.”

  “Alyx,” Raine warned, clamping his hand onto her shoulder so hard she nearly fell. “Have you kept watch?” he asked the leader of the mob. “Have you hidden your goods?”

  “Well!” he said, glancing hostilely toward Alyx. “Some of us have buried them. John here had his knife under his pillow and in the mornin’ it was gone.”

  “Yet no one has seen this thief?” Raine asked.

  Blanche stepped forward. “It must be someone small, someone light enough to slip about so easy.” Her eyes darted to Alyx.

  The mob turned their malevolent glances toward the boy next to Raine.

  “It would have to be someone fearless,” Blanche continued. “Someone who thought he was protected.”

  Involuntarily, Alyx took a step backward, closer to Raine.

  “Blanche,” Raine said quietly, “do you have someone you suspect? Get it out in the open.”

  “No one for sure,” she said, loving the way everyone listened to her. “But I have me ideas.”

  Alyx, regaining her courage, started to step forward, but Raine stopped her.

  “We’ll catch the thief,” one of the men said, “and when we do, is he gonna be punished?”

  Alyx was so stunned by the look of hate in the man’s eye that she didn’t really hear Raine’s answer. Somehow he was able to promise them enough that, grumbling, they finally dispersed.

  “They hate me,” Alyx whispered as Raine pushed her into the tent. “Why would they hate me?”

  “You hate them, Alyx,” Raine said. “They feel it even if you never say so. They think you put yourself above them.”

  She thought she was used to Raine’s blunt way of speaking, but she was not prepared for this. “I don’t hate them.”

  “They are people the same as you and me. We had the advantage of a family. Do you know the woman without a right hand? Maude? Her father cut off her hand when she was three so she’d get more money when she begged. She was a prostitute by the time she was ten. They are thieves and murderers, but it’s only what they’ve known.”

  Alyx sat down heavily on a stool. “In these last months you’ve never mentioned this. Why?”

  “It is your opinion. Each of us must do what we must.”

  “Oh, Raine,” she cried, throwing her arms about his neck. “You are so good and kind, so noble. You seem to love everyone while I love no one.”

  “A saint is what I am,” he agreed solemnly. “And my first act of sainthood is to declare my armor filthy and to deputize one scrawny angel to clean it.”

  “Again? Raine, in the next letter could I ask your brother for a real squire?”

  “Up, you lazy child,” he commanded, grabbing the pieces of steel, but as she stood at the door, loaded down, he gave her a fervent kiss. “To remember me by,” he whispered before pushing her outside.

  At the stream, Jocelin met her, five rabbits on a string across his shoulder. They spoke only briefly before Joss went back to the camp. He was spending more and more time with Rosamund.

  Alyx tried her best to put the incident of the robberies out of her mind. Surely the people would not believe Blanche’s insinuations.

  Two seemingly uneventful days went by and then there was another robbery and again people looked at Alyx suspiciously. Blanche, Alyx thought. The woman had certainly been busy in the last few days.

  Once, when she ladled herself a bowl of stew, someone jostled her and the hot broth burned her hand. It seemed to be an accident but she wasn’t sure. Another time she heard two men loudly discussing people who thought they were better than others.

  On the fourth day, as she was walking on the training field, a sword accidently cut her arm. At Raine’s questioning, no one seemed to have had his hand on the sword, and when he made them all train an extra hour, they glowered at Alyx.

  In the tent, Raine was quiet as he bound her wound.

  “Say something!” she demanded.

  “I don’t like this. I don’t like to see you hurt. Stay closer to me. Don’t leave my sight.”

  She only nodded at him. Perhaps she had been too hostile to these people. Perhaps they did deserve some of her time. She didn’t know much about people really, only music. In Moreton she’d been popular because she gave people her music, but here they seemed to want something else. She knew Blanche was turning the people against her, but if she’d been kind over the last months Blanche wouldn’t have had such an easy job.

  That evening she borrowed Raine’s lute and sat by the campfir
e and began to play. One by one, the people got up and left. For some reason this frightened her more than anything else.

  For two days Alyx stayed close to Raine. The camp people now had someone to turn their hatred on, and they showed their feelings at every opportunity.

  It was on the evening of the second day, while Alyx was just a few feet from Raine’s side, that a man suddenly grabbed her and began searching her. Before Alyx could even cry out, the man yelled in triumph and held aloft a knife Alyx had never seen before.

  “The boy took it,” the man yelled. “We have proof.”

  Instantly, Raine was beside Alyx, pulling her behind him. “What does this mean?” he demanded.

  The men grinned at the crowd gathering around them. “Your high-nosed little boy can’t deny this,” he said, holding the knife out for examination. “I found this in his pocket. I’ve had me suspicions for some time, but now we’re all sure.” He pushed his face close to Alyx’s and his breath was foul. “Now you won’t be thumin’ your nose at us.”

  In seconds, he was picking himself up from the ground where Raine had tossed him. “Get back to work!” Raine ordered.

  The people, the crowd growing larger by the moment, refused to move. “He’s a thief,” someone said stubbornly. “Beat him.”

  “Tear the flesh off his back and then see how proud he is.”

  Alyx, eyes wide, moved behind Raine.

  “The boy is no thief,” Raine said stubbornly.

  “You nobles talk about fair treatment,” someone in the back yelled. “This boy steals from us and is allowed to go unpunished.”